Qlik, a leader in data analytics, announced that it has secured its latest patent for Qlik Data Catalyst that’s focused on the product’s innovative capabilities in data management using a metadata repository.

With trends expanding from immersive experiences, graphic design, photography, illustration, and more, brands can stay ahead of the mainstream, plan their next campaign, or inspire their biggest project yet.

Providing content on the Internet free of charge is made possible by advertising. However, not targeted or obtrusive advertising endangers the proper functioning of this model. Rather, it favors the massive use of adblockers.

According to preliminary figures in the IDC Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, smartphone shipments in China stood at 98 million units in the second quarter of 2019, down 6% from the same period last year. The industry outlook, however, turns out to be much better than expected, not only because the forecasted 9% contraction didn’t occur.

The discussion about the optimal advertising space is becoming more and more intense. One thing is certain: one-sided relationships between advertisers and publishers are no longer sustainable - full transparency, quality and efficiency are the norm.

Today, every customer is leaving behind vast amounts of data while shopping online, providing marketers with numerous indications of their personality, their preferences and their purchase intentions. Each point of contact with an individual customer can be tracked across channels and evaluated according to the role it played in the purchase decision process.

Online advertising and onsite optimization, but even individual channels such as SEO, SEA, display and social media are considered and evaluated too often separately: although a holistic implementation can often be realized with existing tools - even without large, expensive and inflexible fully integrated suites. New approaches through artificial intelligence and a focus on the evaluation and use of massive data, are a real game changer.

The proportion of digital contact points, significant for the success of your own business model, is growing. As a result, the online customer journey has become an integral part of the customer intelligence strategy today. In addition to the online advertising contacts that take place along the entire digital customer journey, one's own website plays a central role here, too. Whether in traditional eCommerce or lead generation, the focus is always on the user. With the help of digital analytics, the behavior and needs of users can be better understood so that in-depth recommendations for action can be derived, thus, leading to improved service, a better product, and an optimized customer experience.

Our little personal all-rounder and companion in all situations - the smartphone - answers us any question at any time, and the information obtained then helps us making decisions. In these situations, called "micro-moments", companies can easily get in touch with customers by being helpful to them.

Both Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) are expected to have a bright future in terms of opportunities, but they are entering the race with unequal conditions. Both technologies  are already mature and considered useful applications in different areas: since the triumph of Pokémon GO, most marketers are open to these new technologies.

The key to a personalized and targeted customer approach is a good understanding of your customers. Sounds simple, but what exactly should you know about your customers?

Read on to find out our top 7 recommendations for better understanding your customers:

1. Who are my top customers? Top customers are the proportion of customers who regularly generate high sales. These can be identified by the so-called RFM analysis. To do this, ask the following questions:

• Recency: How long since their last purchase?
• Frequency: How often do they buy?
• Monetary: How much revenue was generated?

The top customers can then be determined from the intersection of these three groups.

2. Where are my customers located? The geographical location of customers can be important for marketers, as it can have a decisive influence on customers’ preferences if their purchases are geographically based – for example, which airport to book flights from, or which venue to attend a live event at. Geo-analysis uses spatial information such as postcodes for visualizations and selections. This enables new perspectives on market penetration, the identification of new market potential and the dispatch of regional offers and/or teams.

3. What do my customers buy? Which customer bought which product? This is a fairly important question. Not only does it inform you about your current customers, but it also allows you to identify customers with a similar profile who have not yet purchased this product. This enables the realization of untapped potential. Customer profiles can be defined based on demographic, psychographic, geographic or behavioral characteristics.

4. What turnover do my customers generate? Knowing which customer group generates what turnover is crucial for the distribution of your marketing budget. For example, customers can be identified in order to receive loyalty rewards or higher quality communications. Often referred to as Customer Lifetime Value (CLT), this metric represents the total revenue that a customer generates during a company's life cycle.

5. When and how often do my customers buy? When and how often customers buy is essential information, especially in retail, in order to optimize orders and inventory accordingly. In addition, this information can be used to identify the best possible time for advertising or campaign contact, and customers at risk of churn. The prerequisite for this is the transaction history of the customers. This can be mapped, for example, in a CRM system.

6. How many customers do I lose per year? Even though your number of customers may have remained constant over a longer period of time, it’s possible that some customers have churned, and this effect has been offset by new customers. In order to increase the customer base in the long term, however, it’s important to know how many customers churn each year, identify possible causes for this and take appropriate countermeasures. Precisely which customers have churned can be determined by the last transaction date using a CRM system.

7. How many new customers do I gain each year? Based on the number of new customers you can see which marketing communications have been particularly effective to date. This helps to plan your sales forecasts for the coming year and determine which marketing measures should be given more focus. New customers within one year can be recognized in the CRM system based on the creation date of the data master record.

By Apteco

Criteo unveiled seasonal data which showed that Singles’ Day is still Singapore’s biggest shopping festival, but the likes of 10.10, Black Friday, Cyber Monday and 12.12 are showing uptake among Singaporeans, too.

The competition in the markets is getting tougher. In the long run only those who constantly win new prospects will make it. However, a personal approach and support of individual prospects and customers is hardly possible due to more and more complex sales processes and limited resources.

While artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the top technologies that will change the Singaporean business landscape in the next three years, most organizations in Singapore are still fearful of AI. Are we really talking about Singapore, which comes in third in the World Economic Forum’s list of the most innovative cities in the world?